The car will be the No. 5 — the same number on Kahne’s Sprint Cup car at Hendrick Motorsports — for the races driven by Kahne and Sweet. Regan Smith, previously announced as a full-time driver of the No. 5 car, will move to the No. 7. Earnhardt will drive the No. 88 car when he competes in select races. No crew chief for the No. 5 car was announced.

Great Clips and Kahne have a relationship dating back to 2003 and the company will sponsor Kahne for three Cup races at Hendrick this year. Sweet, a Kahne protégé who has driven for Kahne in various open-wheel series, has also driven for Great Clips in select Nationwide and truck events.

JR Motorsports is looking for sponsorship for six races so the No. 5 car can run the full season. The exact number of races for Kahne and Sweet — Kahne ran 15 races while Sweet did most of the rest for Great Clips last year at Turner Motorsports — was not announced.

The Great Clips race for Earnhardt, who will run the February race at Daytona and the March race at Las Vegas in TaxSlayer.com-sponsored cars, also was not announced.

“The last three months have been critical for the direction of JR Motorsports and the commitment we’ve made, and this partnership with Great Clips is a major step in the right direction,” JRM co-owner Kelley Earnhardt Miller said.

“To sign a 28-race sponsor while adding Kasey Kahne and Brad Sweet to our line-up is quite extraordinary. Our goal is still to run two full-time teams, and this helps us greatly to achieve that.”

Kahne drove two races for JR Motorsports in 2011, finishing fourth at Kentucky and third at New Hampshire.

“Great Clips has been a long-time sponsor of mine for 10 years,” Kahne said. “They support everything that I do from the Kasey Kahne Foundation to my Sprint car team and they continue to grow their program in NASCAR. We all look forward to joining JR Motorsports and continuing to build on the success that they have had.”